


2,000 Days From the End of the World

by patientalien



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Depression, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Suicidal Thoughts, Thor (Marvel) Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-24 22:43:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20713757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patientalien/pseuds/patientalien
Summary: After a while, he stops bothering. It's too hard, and he's too tired. When he sleeps for four days straight, nobody seems to notice.That, or none of them want to approach him about it. Since he had shut out Bruce, the rest have been giving him a wide berth too. He wonders what Banner had told them; do they hate him? Or do they just not know what to say to the man who destroyed the universe?Thor finds it hardly matters.------Or: Snapshots of a five year plummet.





	2,000 Days From the End of the World

**Author's Note:**

> IDK guys.

_ Thor is led down the center of the throne room in chains. On either side of the aisle, undead Asgardians jeer at him. On the dais in front of him, Odin looks down in disappointment. Flanking him are Loki and Hela, both smiling. Loki's neck is broken, bruises ringing his pale throat and Hela's skin is melting off. Frigga is in the shadows, unseen but still felt.  _

_ Thor is thrown to his knees before the throne, using his elbows to keep his head from knocking against the marble floor. "Thor," intones his father from above him, "King of Nowhere, and of Nothing. The boy who thinks himself a man. You have opened the universe up to the horror and desolation of war. You have proven yourself Unworthy of your realm, so it shall be taken from you. You have proven yourself Unworthy of your loved ones, so they shall be taken from you." Odin glares with his one good eye, the ravens perched on the back of the throne cawing and flapping their wings with an exaggerated  **swoosh-swoosh-swoosh** . "Your selfishness and arrogance have led us to ruin. You shall be cast out, from all places you once called home." _

_ "Father, please," Thor gasps out, prostrate on the floor. _

_ Odin's face twists, elongates, thickens, changes from Asgardian to Titan. Thanos raises Loki up by his neck and throws him down the dais to take his last shuddering breaths just out of Thor's reach. The air in the throne room is thick with dust. Thor chokes on his own breath and Thanos takes slow, plodding steps down the stairs towards him. "You should have gone for the head." _

* * *

Thor startles awake and it takes a moment to realize where he is. Pressing a hand against his aching head, he blinks away the nightmare to see his temporary rooms at the Avengers compound. "Shit," he gasps, struggling to control his breathing as panic and guilt claw their way up his throat. 

The door slides open and Thor swallows his agony, calling Stormbreaker to his hand. Just in case. Because he's a little on edge. But it's just Bruce, holding up his hands in surrender. "FRIDAY said your heart rate was elevated," Banner says to explain his presence. "Are you okay?"

The look on his face and the tone of his voice suggest Bruce knows exactly how ridiculous that question is right now, not seventy-two hours after Thor had destroyed the universe. "Yes, fine, of course," he manages to push past his teeth. Talking is physically painful. Even just sitting up seems like it takes more energy than he has ever possessed. So he lies back down, turns to face the wall. 

"Thor, can we talk?" Bruce sounds anxious. Thor feels his chest twist once again. His friend needs him, and Thor can't… he just can't right now. 

"No," he says, and hates himself even more. 

* * *

The Avengers try to do some damage control, but the loss of half of all life on the planet is not exactly something there's any precedent for how to handle. There's a lot of winging it, and a lot of pushing through strong emotions to get the work done.

Thor had thought the distraction of hard work would help.

It doesn't. It just serves as a constant, aggressive reminder of how badly he had failed. He hadn't had any time to process anything that had happened before Thanos, and all of the loss and misery is running together in his mind, one pain stacked on top of the next until his spine is bowed and he can barely drag himself out of bed in the mornings.

After a while, he stops bothering. It's too hard, and he's too tired. When he sleeps for four days straight, nobody seems to notice. 

That, or none of them want to approach him about it. Since he had shut out Bruce, the rest have been giving him a wide berth too. He wonders what Banner had told them; do they hate him? Or do they just not know what to say to the man who destroyed the universe?

Thor finds it hardly matters. 

* * *

Nineteen days after the end of the world, and Thor is curled up on the couch in the common room, wrapped in a blanket. He can't get warm anymore, all the sweatpants and hoodies and blankets unable to ward off the chill that has settled into his bones. Perhaps the loss of Asgard has weakened him. 

He feels weak. 

"Whatcha watching?" Natasha asks, coming up behind him. Its the first thing anyone has said to him in days. 

His eyes flick up from the beer on the table in front of him to the television screen on the wall across from him. "That show where the people are nice to each other while they're baking cakes," he replies. It's the most he's spoken at one time since… before. 

"I could use something nice," the Black Widow says, sounding a little shaky. "Mind if I join you?" 

Thor shifts to make room for her and doesn't say anything when she pulls part of his blanket over to cover her feet. Soon, Bruce wanders in and takes a seat on Natasha's other side. Steve and Rhodey arrive shortly after, and even Rocket hops onto the back of the sofa, curling just behind Thor's head. In silence, the last of Earth's Mightiest Heroes give themselves a few hours of comfort. 

* * *

The woman radiating the same sort of power as the Space Stone appears the next day, and three days after that, Tony Stark returns to Earth. Thor can't bring himself to come in from the empty, silent courtyard to greet his friend, to say how glad he is that he hasn't lost anyone else. He can't take it, the eyes on him whenever he moves or speaks now, as if everyone is waiting for him to crack. 

Joke's on them. Thor had shattered into hundreds of pieces ages ago. Now all that's left to do is ground the shards into powder. 

Into dust. 

* * *

It's as if they're waiting for him, for his approval. As soon as he expresses appreciation for Carol Danvers, the rest of the group melts for her and then, suddenly, he's back in his armor and cape, desperately missing the soft warmth of his sweatshirt, on the way to right his wrong. 

Something tugs at him, a sense of wrongness even beyond the wrongness that now exists in the universe because of what he had done.

Because of what he hadn't done.

* * *

And then it's over. 

And all for nothing. 

* * *

No one speaks. No one looks at him, nor at Stormbreaker, still stained with blood. When he catches them glancing at him when they think he isn't looking, their expressions range from concern to anger. 

He retreats to his room and doesn't emerge for another month, not until Carol Danvers knocks on his door to tell him she had found the remainder of Asgard.

And they're outside waiting for him.

* * *

Bruce is talking quietly with Valkyrie by the time Thor manages to pull himself together enough to go out and greet whatever is left of his people.

It's a pathetically small number. 

He lets himself be picked up and thumped on the back by Korg, using the Kronan's buoyantly enthusiastic greeting as an excuse to ignore the sidelong glances both Bruce and Valkyrie are shooting at him. 

He manages to return the greeting, blinking away hot tears as he takes in what is left of his people, mingling in the vast hanger bay while Natasha and Steve work to get everyone settled. It's hardly their job to do; its Thor's. He needs to be King again. 

He isn't sure he can. 

He hangs back and watches, wrapping his arms around himself until he can't stand it anymore, retreating back into the safety and silence of his room. 

* * *

The time between the return of what is left of Asgard and leaving the Compound is a blur of meetings and planning and pleading. Thor speaks more than he has in months, and by the end of each day he is hoarse and exhausted and drinks himself to sleep on the dwindling remains of the mead he had once brought to Midgard by the barrel. Now these dregs are what is left, and he works diligently to drink them dry. 

But each day he gets back up. He finds his people a new place. He makes the arrangements, fumbles his way through the politics that even the Midgardians don't seem to understand anymore with so many world leaders now gone. It makes things a little easier, all things considered. 

And every night he sees his father's scowling displeasure, sees Loki's cyanotic stillness, sees the one monster Thor had failed to slay. 

He goes back to the place Odin died, to the place Thor's whole universe turned upside-down, where the bottomless pit he is currently falling down had first opened up.

He doesn't know where else to go. 

And, miraculously, his people follow him. 

* * *

"How long has that been sitting there?" 

The Valkyrie is referring to the slice of pizza Thor has pulled out of the box sitting on the couch cushion beside him, five hundred and twenty seven days after the end of the world. 

Thor slumps further down on his couch and takes a bite. The cheese is a little slimy, and the crust is hard as a rock. It hardly matters after he washes it down with a gulp of tequila. "Since the last time I got pizza," he replies. 

Her face is pulled into something halfway between sympathy and disgust. It's an expression Thor has gotten used to. "Which was when?"

Thor shrugs. "Dunno. Don't care."

Thor is done caring.

He's almost figured out the exact combination of alcohol and mindless distraction needed to stop giving a shit, but as they say, practice makes perfect. 

"Hmm," she says. 

"Hmm," he echoes.

He dozes off, and when he wakes up, she is gone and so is all of the garbage that has built up in Thor's quest to rid himself of all thought and feel any kind of pleasure around the pain. 

It feels almost impossible.

He keeps trying.

* * *

Miek and Korg invite themselves to stay after finding Thor stumbling down the rocky cliffside towards the water one afternoon, the siren's song of oblivion calling him to the sea, six hundred and two days after the end of the world. Korg had tossed him over one stoney shoulder and carried him home, and simply never left. 

Thor knows that someday, Korg will. Miek will. Valkyrie will. He hasn't heard from any of his mortal friends, but he hasn't really made himself easy to contact either. They know where he is. He knows where they are. 

He doesn't care. They'll all be gone someday, and he will be entirely alone. He's trying to get used to the idea. He truly doesn't care. 

Truly.

* * *

If he doesn't think too hard, he can forget about everything that has happened in the eight hundred and seventy-four days since…

Well, since he'd gotten this house, since his people had settled in this place and begun to carve out a new existence. It's all good things, all positive news. New Asgard has all sorts of amenities; free WiFi, multiple restaurants, and a a brewery to rival that of the one in Asgard-that-was. 

He has his friends, who never push too hard and always want him around. He has Valkyrie, who keeps the village running and holds his hair sometimes when he's made himself sick in the process of not remembering. They all seem to understand. He appreciates that, the deference. 

It makes it so much easier to pretend when everyone goes along with it, even if only to his face. 

That's fine by him. 

* * *

Sometimes, in the dark moments and that tenuous place between comfortably numb and riotously drunk, Thor wonders if he should have seen all of this coming. 

He'd had plenty of warnings. 

He'd seen plenty of signs. 

If only he had listened.

If only he had understood. 

If only he had done things differently. 

If only…

If only…

If only…

* * *

The nightmares come night after night, to the point where he isn't sure he would be able to sleep in their absence. 

When he loops the rope over the exposed beams of his ceiling, Korg asks what it's for. 

"Decoration," he lies, one thousand days exactly since the end of the world. 

* * *

He only puts his head through the loop once. 

He can't make himself step off the chair.

One thousand, five hundred and eighty-one days after the end of the world, Thor decides to leave the rope. 

As decoration. 

Just in case. 

* * *

Korg likes the musical  _ Wicked _ . Thor doesn't like it very much; too much green and black. But there's a particular line that Thor likes, because it sums up his current life philosophy:

_Life is painless for the brainless_. 

He's always been accused of being dense, after all, now he's simply… leaning into it. One thousand, five hundred and thirty-three days since the end of the world, and Thor's biggest worries are the poor cable reception and the next supply run.

He doesn't worry about what to wear, because he doesn't often feel the need to change clothes. He doesn't worry about how he looks, because it's not like he needs to impress anybody. He doesn't worry about how much he drinks, because he's Asgardian. He doesn't worry about the creeping grief in the night that climbs up his throat and cuts off his air, because that wasn't him who lost everyone and everything; that was the old Thor. 

He's New Thor, and he is happy. 

Of course.

Of course. 

… of course. 


End file.
